


Side By Side

by potentiality_26



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 13:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: Robin knew him by his size, by his wild hair, by the faint hitch in his step.  It was all but legend that one of his legs was bitten off by some beast or other and a new one was fashioned out of metal and magic by a wizard who owed Strike his life.  She had thought he might not live up to his reputation, but it seemed he fit it almost perfectly.Almost, because Robin had often thought she might well run the other way if she ever met him- but instead her cheeks felt warm, and though her heart stuttered in her chest it didn't feel like fear, not at all.They always make a good team.





	Side By Side

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com/post/164408375240/froomage-lulalandrys-an-actual-photo-of-strike). I know nothing about the game in question, but it made me want to do a fantasy AU with these two. 
> 
> Not Brit-picked.

The first time Robin picked up a bow, she was too small to properly lift it.  Her mother had cooed and her had father laughed, and neither had thought very much about it.  There were legendary woman warriors in their realm, it wasn’t that; Robin was simply slated for... well.  For a very different life.

The second time Robin picked up a bow, she was hanging her father's up above the mantelpiece for him.  He hunted nothing more dangerous than game animals, and then only for sport.  Their family had servants who did the real hunting.  Robin was about as close to wherever her meals came from as she was to the stars in the sky.  She was quite the young lady by then- everyone said so- and if she felt a pang as she looked at the bow, if her fingers itched to touch it, to hold on and put it to some greater use, she hid it from herself as much as anyone else.  

The third time Robin picked up a bow, though- that was a different story.

*   *   *

She must have asked herself if she knew what she was doing at least a dozen times that day.  The answer was unequivocally _no_ every time, but she didn’t let it stop her.  

Traveling fighters had passed often through her father's lands as she was growing up.  They were given a hot meal and even rooms to stay the night.  Most men of her father's station would never do such a thing, but Robin had always taken great pride in it.  She listened eagerly to their stories, and she knew that a lone fighter would sometimes join one of the larger bands that roamed the realm in search of beasts that needed killing and jobs that would pay.  They needed do little more formal than sit themselves by a campfire and get to work- and that was exactly what Robin planned to do.

It wasn't night when she found the group, and there were no campfires- that was the first difficulty with Robin's plan.  The sun was high in the sky and she saw a throng of people gathered in a clearing some distance away from the tents, all training with various weapons.  Robin saw men and women both, as she had anticipated, and they all looked grizzled and fierce, as she must have known they would be- and yet something about the sight made her want to turn around and go home.  She had left her parents a note- that they must by now have read- explaining what she intended to do.  They would be overjoyed if she came back, but she would be heartily ashamed.  Still, it seemed almost worth it until someone in the group hailed her.

He- the person was very grimy, and not particularly large, but most likely a he- pointed to a pile near the edge of the clearing.  The pile was made up of even more weapons- most likely spares taken from renegade armies or dragon hoards- and Robin realized that the person thought she hesitated because she didn't have a weapon.

It was true; she didn't.  She had almost nothing, in fact, beyond her bedroll and the clothes on her back.  She had only a few half-finished explanations for that in her mind- mostly she was counting on no one asking.

No one did.

Robin squared her shoulders, picked up a bow, and joined a few of the others in target practice.  None of them seemed to notice or care that she was unfamiliar.  Even without eyes on her Robin worried that she would, finally, lose her nerve.  She had been training alone and in secret for months; this would be the first time she fired her bow with an audience, relatively disinterested or not. 

She aimed, look a breath, and let fly.  Once, and then- when it felt good and she didn't falter- again, and again.

Suddenly Robin's audience wasn't so disinterested anymore.  Her three arrows nestled close together, dead center on the target.  She heard whistles and a smattering of applause- and no questions or insinuations that she didn't belong.

Robin fired again. 

“Good form,” someone said.  The someone had a very pleasant, low voice, and Robin glanced sidelong in its direction- and had to swallow heavily when she recognized Cormoran Strike, the man who led this group. 

Robin knew him by his size, by his wild hair, by the faint hitch in his step. It was all but legend that one of his legs was bitten off by some beast or other and a new one was fashioned out of metal and magic by a wizard who owed Strike his life.  She had thought he might not live up to his reputation, but it seemed he fit it almost perfectly.

Almost, because Robin had often thought she might well run the other way if she ever met him- but instead her cheeks felt warm, and though her heart stuttered in her chest it didn't feel like fear, not at all.

“Thank you?” she said.

He gave her a small smile and walked off to bestow similar praise or gentle critique on a few of the others.  Robin was tired from her journey thus far, but she felt giddy suddenly- as if she could break into a run or turn cartwheels through the clearing.  

She simply lifted another arrow to her new bow and fired again.

*   *   *

It was common knowledge that Strike didn’t take a lot of interest in his fighters.  He made sure they got paid, of course- he looked after them, and he was kind, but he rarely asked after their personal lives or let himself get involved.  It was one of the reasons Robin had chosen this group specifically. 

So she didn't expect to see much more of him than she had that first day- or to see him at all, really.  She didn't. 

Not until the day they rode out to deal with a goblin infestation. 

Robin was apprehensive about it, to say the least.  She was a good shot- as she had already proven to Strike and the others, and to herself- but she had never actually been in a fight.  Not like this would be, anyway.  What if she panicked or froze up?  What if she made a mistake and got herself- or, worse yet, someone else- killed? 

These questions tormented Robin all the way to the caves where the goblins were hidden.  She found herself wishing she had run home while she had the chance.  She found herself wishing someone had seen that she didn't belong and thrown her out.  It was a hard life so far- always moving from place to place, always a little hungry, always chilled from the wind and sore from laying out a bedroll on the rocky ground- and yet Robin was as content as she had been in a long time.  But if she was back home jumping at shadows at least she wouldn’t be hurting anyone but herself. 

The battle, when it started, was as bad as Robin had imagined- and yet a relief at the same time.  The goblins were ugly, sneering creatures- all animal rage and instinct even though they wore ragged clothes and walked on two legs.  It was frenzied and chaotic, but she didn’t freeze up.  Indeed, though they had never been instructed to do so- at least not in Robin's hearing- the fighters kept those like Robin who favored long-range weapons relatively far from the fighting.  All Robin had to do was clear her mind and shoot.

It all happened so quickly that she didn’t have much time to look around- but Robin couldn’t help glancing toward their leader, couldn't help that her eyes stuck to him once she had.  Strike’s size made him look ungainly, even uncouth, while he was walking through the camp, but here he was in his element.  Quick and fierce and... almost beautiful. 

When it was all over, most of the fighters set to picking over their fallen foes.  It was- Robin knew intellectually- a necessary if morbid task.  Though many of these jobs did pay, much of the coin and equipment a force like this one depended on came from the dead. 

Still, despite her part in making a great many of these creatures dead- or perhaps because of it- Robin couldn’t quite bring herself to touch them.  She stood along the edges of the battlefield instead of joining the others.  A few of the men cheered at finds; goblins liked the shine of jewelry but couldn’t guess at its worth- which was part of why they so often hid themselves away in disused mines.

Robin wondered if perhaps these caves actually connected to one such mine.

And as Robin scanned the ground, she saw it.  A kind of... seam in the earth, where the dirt looked loose and bits of grasses didn't line up quite right with their neighbors.  Robin had never seen anything like it, but in a burst of intuition she understood what it most likely was: a secondary exit, cut by miners ages ago in case of a cave-in.  Another way, besides the mouth of the cave, to leave the mines beneath the ground- both for the men who had worked them once and for the creatures who had lived there since. 

And the dirt was being pushed just slightly up, and beneath the edge of it Robin saw...

Eyes.  Red eyes. 

The remaining goblins- in the moments that followed Robin hardly had time to count them, but she had an idea that there were three and she would later learn she was right- moved quickly, but Robin moved quicker.  Only one of the fighters was close to the opening, and it was Strike himself.  She pushed him out of the way before anyone else had an idea of what she was pushing him out of the way of.  Then three things happened in quick succession: she and Strike hit the ground, goblins rose up from beneath it, and arrows and throwing axes flew thick through the air. 

It was over again very quickly, and this time for good.  And Robin was still on the ground, half on top of Strike.  She couldn’t help but notice that up this close he had very fine eyes. 

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He nodded.  “You?”

“I think so,” was Robin’s reply, but she didn’t think that she was entirely all right- not as he lifted a big hand and brushed calloused fingers across her cheek.  Her chest felt tight, and her heart was beating even faster than it had when she first saw him.  Even faster than it had during the fighting.

“You have a cut,” he said.  “Just there.”

“Ah,” she managed.

The next few moments passed in a blur.  Strike pulled himself up- lifting her along with him with ease.  He sat her down on a large stone and peered into her face.  “It isn’t too bad,” he said.  He dabbed at the cut with a wet cloth.  She had no idea where he had gotten it. 

"There's no need for you to-" she began.

"I think there is," he said evenly.  "You saved my life."

There was a hum of chatter from the others, but they might as well not have been there for all Robin was interested in anyone but him just then, and eventually they dispersed.  “How did you come to be here, Robin?” Strike asked in the quiet that followed.

She hadn’t even been aware that he knew her name.  “My home was attacked by ogres,” she said- it was the truth, though she left out just how large and well-guarded her home was, how shocking it had been to face that kind of danger in a place where it might as well not have existed for all the years of her life.  “And I... I never wanted to just sit back and watch while something terrible happened.  Not to me or to anyone.  Not ever again.”

The people at home had thought her silly, weak, and fanciful for thinking that way.  She had been told many times that not wanting to feel so helpless was a terrible reason to go looking for trouble.  Strike didn't seem to think so, though.  “I’m very glad you did,” he said.        

*   *   *

It was a day like any other when Robin saw noblemen riding into the camp. 

That wasn't particularly unusual in itself; Robin had learned as days and weeks turned into months that men and women of means would often tour camps like this one- offering arms or food or money in exchange for the promise that if their lands were ever ravaged by a dragon or giant or the like, these warriors would come and fight for them.  But Robin heard a voice she recognized from among their number- and for a moment, she almost froze.

But compared to the things she had fought since she left home, Robin convinced herself that this was nothing, nothing at all- so instead of going still like a prey animal desperate not to be noticed, she ran.  She ran straight to Strike’s tent.  She didn't know what she would say or do when she arrived there; she was only sure that if she arrived before anyone else did it might not be too late.

But someone else did arrive first.  Shanker was already with Strike.  He was a former thief of some stripe or other, but in spite of this or perhaps because of it he- of all the fighters in the camp- was the one whose advice Strike valued above all others.  He was saying: “…asking about a young lady with pretty red-gold hair.”

Robin felt her stomach twist unpleasantly. 

“And I told him that we most definitely would've noticed if there was a lady like that around here,” Shanker continued.

“Yes, of course,” Strike said.  He sounded thoughtful, and not at all confused- but it couldn't be because he didn't know her.  He had spoken to her more than once; she had saved his life!

"I'm not sure he believed me, though.  Which is strange, because I've got a very honest face."

Strike made a choking noise that might have been a laugh. 

"Anyway, he said that if she _was_ here, she had to know that it was time to give up this foolishness and come back where she belongs."  It was clear from Shanker's tone that he was quoting directly- though Robin would have known that either way.  Message relayed, Shanker departed.

But Robin lingered, not knowing what to do, until she heard Strike call out, “Come here, Robin.”

She wondered how long he had known she was there as she obeyed, her head ducked low.

“I’m not in the habit of giving up my fighters,” Strike told her.  His voice was even and cool, as if he had no idea how being called one of his fighters still affected her.  “But as one of my fighters you are free to come and go as you please- even if that means leaving with your...”  He left it dangling, a question it was unlike him to ask.

“Matthew,” she said.  “I was engaged to him.  I suppose I still am, if he would still have me.”

Strike growled, a dangerous sound that made her startle a little.  She wondered if now that he knew a marriage was in the balance he would tell Matthew she was here after all.  Strike said, “Don’t say that.  Don’t say if he would still have you like you’re a bushel of apples he ordered that aren't quite up to scratch.”

“No,” Robin agreed, although she suspected that, for Matthew, it wasn’t entirely unlike that.  In fact, Robin thought that- just maybe- she wouldn’t mind Matthew looking for her now if she thought it was because he loved her so much.  They had been engaged for a long time, and she had truly wanted that, once.  Her parents were old fashioned in a lot of ways, but they weren’t the kind to engage their daughter to a man she didn’t want.  But time passed, and what Robin wanted out of her life changed.  What Matthew wanted... didn’t.  There wasn’t really any place for her in his life that wouldn’t be better filled by a different sort of lady, and he had kept company with his share of those over the course of their engagement.  But Matthew didn’t like to let go of things- including Robin.

But she decided that she wouldn’t be thinking of herself as a thing for Matthew to let go of or not, not ever again.  Like he could sense that Strike softened, and smiled gently at her.

She smiled back.

"You told me-" he hesitated.  When she nodded encouragingly, he said, "You told me your home was attacked.  Was he... not there when it was?"

"No," she replied, careful.  Matthew hadn't been, and she had resented him for it once.  But that wasn't why she left home, and it wasn't why she no longer wanted to marry him.  It probably didn't matter, but for some reason she hated to think that Strike would misunderstand her in this.

Strike only nodded.  "I wanted you to know that... I came to this life under similar circumstances.  Not ogres, and not- not in my home."  Something about the way he said it- home- let Robin know that he had figured out, because of Matthew, that she was of noble blood, but it didn't seem to matter to him.  "But I was to be married, once.  And she... turned out to be something other than I thought.  Dangerous.  I wanted... to do something with all I felt, and I ended up here.  It doesn't matter, is what I mean.  How you ended up here doesn't matter."

Robin felt her smile widen.

And Matthew returned home alone. 

Later, listening to the others talk, Robin began to suspect that what Strike had told her of his past was more than he ever told anyone except perhaps Shanker.  She carried that like something soft and warm and living close to her chest.    

*   *   *

When winter came the traveling was miserable, and- though Robin had bought and scavenged as much equipment as any of them by then- she was bitterly cold.  It still didn't make her want to go home.  She imagined that she might, one day, when she had made a fierce name for herself- but often she didn't think about it at all.  One night, as Robin huddled by a fire with a few of the others, Strike passed by and dropped his cloak over her shoulders. 

It was so enormous that she practically disappeared under it, and for a moment she was too shocked to say anything.  By the time she could speak, he was gone.  Later, after the cook served supper, she found him and sat down beside him.  “Thank you,” she said.

He nodded, almost imperceptibly, but said, “You shouldn’t sit so close.  Not wearing that.”

She drew the cloak more tightly around her, not wanting to give it up.  It was heavy, and musty-smelling, but it kept her warm- and it reminded her of him.  “Why not?”

“People will think that you’re- that we’re-”

From a campfire away, Shanker winked at Robin, and suddenly she didn’t need Strike to finish explaining.  She felt herself flush, a little, but- “Would that be so bad?” she asked, letting one of her hands snake out from under the cover of the cloak to grasp his arm.  If he didn’t like the idea, Robin told herself, he would shake her off. 

He said, “Oh.”  And he didn’t shake her off, so Robin pressed a little closer.

After a while, Strike let his arm settle around her shoulders and pressed his lips to the top of her head. 

*   *   *

By the spring thaw, Robin still sat next to Strike by the fire with his arm and his cloak around her shoulders.  But now when he pressed a kiss to the top of her head or nuzzled her hair it was nothing new.  And now when he rose to go and fuss over his people- as he had all those months ago when she couldn’t have imagined what Cormoran Strike fussing would even look like- she smiled fondly as she watched him go.  Left alone- or as alone as one ever was, in the camp- she gazed into the flames and pondered how much things could change. 

And then she heard his voice.  “Robin,” Strike called out.  “Would you come here?  This lad needs a lesson with the bow.”

She smiled, and went to him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com/).


End file.
